Laos! Laos! Laos! Laos! Laos! Laos!
Sep. 23rd, 2006 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanIt's official, my love affair with this country is complete and everlasting.
Good morning, Laos.
I spent a wonderful morning hanging out with some Japanese tourists in Luang Prabang, who confirmed my growing suspicions that the Japanese only speak English to foreigners while in Japan to show off for their friends, but vastly prefer to speak Japanese whilst abroad. Anyway, the lady and (unrelated) gentleman I hung out with were both lovely, and I'm going to visit them when I'm next in Yokohama and Tokyo, respectively.
I boarded a flight for Vientaine this afternoon, which I spent comparing the behavior of Japanese and Korean tourists abroad with an Italian expat in the seat next to me, who'd married a Cambodian woman and now works in Vientaine.
Then to Vientaine. I arrived in time to snag a room at a the guesthouse I wanted while simultaneously avoiding a government airport scam (I'd learned my lesson in Luang Prabang). Serendipitously, the taxi driver I hailed is good friends with the guesthouse proprietor, so I snagged a discount ride back to the airport tomorrow.
I had enough time to visit two former Wats this afternoon. The first was the lovely Haw Pra Keuw, which houses more fascinating architecture and Butsuzou than I have time to recount. Lonely Planet says it sucks, once again proving that Lonely Planet often sucks.
Afterwards I visited Wat Sisaket, which is the only Wat in the city that wasn't destroyed by invading Siamese or Chinese, and features 10,143 Buddha statues, as well as some awesome decaying murals inside the sim. Incidentally, the guard inside the sim too quite a shining to me, neglecting his post to follow me around the temple grounds for the better part of half an hour. He was so dedicated that he attracted the attention of his superior and the ticket lady, who joined the procession.
I returned to the hostel only to be invited to a beer and snacks session with the owner. I spent the next two hours downing about 2 litres of beer and several spicy side dishes whilst discussing vernacular English, the situation in Thailand, and his son's job in Vietnam.
Speaking with the son, who's fluent in Vietnamese, I discovered that I do understand quite a bit of Vietnamese, thanks to the Sinonised vocabulary it shares with Japanese and Korean. More importantly, after four days in the country I'm learning Laotian. Without any guidebooks or formal instruction I've picked up greetings, pronouns, and random nouns, including the word for "dog." (How I figured out the latter is anyone's guess.) But how amazing is that? Four days in the country and I'm learning the language!
On the importance of proper dress and demeanour, 21st century style:
Afterwards to dinner, where I was again the favorite of the male wait staff, who had me take pictures of them with my camera. This, I think, ties in with an upcoming rant about the shittiness of Western tourists in Southeast Asia. Most of the women wear booty shorts and spaghetti tanks with bra straps sticking out. This pisses me off to no end--if you're literate enough to get to Cambodia or Laos with a guidebook in your hand, you're more than capable of reading the repeated admonitions that the aforesaid style of dress is not appropriate. I have been making an effort to dress slightly more modestly, and it's paid off in the lovely reception I've been getting from everyone from novice monks to shopkeeps to people in the street. Serioulsy, I've been given free tours about temples, cheaper room rates, and better exchange rates whilst paying for a meal or the Internet, and I think it's due to the fact that I'm dressed nicely.
Anyway, from there to a coffee shop (I was still pretty drunk from the 2 litres of beer on my empty stomach and needed some water and caffiene.) I spent the better part of the evening conversing with the wait staff in Japanese. It's utterly unreal--everyone in Laos speaks Japanese. I've spoken it more in my four days here--with monks, hotel staff, wait staff, people on the street--than I did during an entire year in Kurobe, which just goes to prove that Kurobe sucks hairy monkey ba--I mean, Laos is a wonderful, wonderful place.
I'm already planning my next visit.
That will be all.
Good morning, Laos.
I spent a wonderful morning hanging out with some Japanese tourists in Luang Prabang, who confirmed my growing suspicions that the Japanese only speak English to foreigners while in Japan to show off for their friends, but vastly prefer to speak Japanese whilst abroad. Anyway, the lady and (unrelated) gentleman I hung out with were both lovely, and I'm going to visit them when I'm next in Yokohama and Tokyo, respectively.
I boarded a flight for Vientaine this afternoon, which I spent comparing the behavior of Japanese and Korean tourists abroad with an Italian expat in the seat next to me, who'd married a Cambodian woman and now works in Vientaine.
Then to Vientaine. I arrived in time to snag a room at a the guesthouse I wanted while simultaneously avoiding a government airport scam (I'd learned my lesson in Luang Prabang). Serendipitously, the taxi driver I hailed is good friends with the guesthouse proprietor, so I snagged a discount ride back to the airport tomorrow.
I had enough time to visit two former Wats this afternoon. The first was the lovely Haw Pra Keuw, which houses more fascinating architecture and Butsuzou than I have time to recount. Lonely Planet says it sucks, once again proving that Lonely Planet often sucks.
Afterwards I visited Wat Sisaket, which is the only Wat in the city that wasn't destroyed by invading Siamese or Chinese, and features 10,143 Buddha statues, as well as some awesome decaying murals inside the sim. Incidentally, the guard inside the sim too quite a shining to me, neglecting his post to follow me around the temple grounds for the better part of half an hour. He was so dedicated that he attracted the attention of his superior and the ticket lady, who joined the procession.
I returned to the hostel only to be invited to a beer and snacks session with the owner. I spent the next two hours downing about 2 litres of beer and several spicy side dishes whilst discussing vernacular English, the situation in Thailand, and his son's job in Vietnam.
Speaking with the son, who's fluent in Vietnamese, I discovered that I do understand quite a bit of Vietnamese, thanks to the Sinonised vocabulary it shares with Japanese and Korean. More importantly, after four days in the country I'm learning Laotian. Without any guidebooks or formal instruction I've picked up greetings, pronouns, and random nouns, including the word for "dog." (How I figured out the latter is anyone's guess.) But how amazing is that? Four days in the country and I'm learning the language!
On the importance of proper dress and demeanour, 21st century style:
Afterwards to dinner, where I was again the favorite of the male wait staff, who had me take pictures of them with my camera. This, I think, ties in with an upcoming rant about the shittiness of Western tourists in Southeast Asia. Most of the women wear booty shorts and spaghetti tanks with bra straps sticking out. This pisses me off to no end--if you're literate enough to get to Cambodia or Laos with a guidebook in your hand, you're more than capable of reading the repeated admonitions that the aforesaid style of dress is not appropriate. I have been making an effort to dress slightly more modestly, and it's paid off in the lovely reception I've been getting from everyone from novice monks to shopkeeps to people in the street. Serioulsy, I've been given free tours about temples, cheaper room rates, and better exchange rates whilst paying for a meal or the Internet, and I think it's due to the fact that I'm dressed nicely.
Anyway, from there to a coffee shop (I was still pretty drunk from the 2 litres of beer on my empty stomach and needed some water and caffiene.) I spent the better part of the evening conversing with the wait staff in Japanese. It's utterly unreal--everyone in Laos speaks Japanese. I've spoken it more in my four days here--with monks, hotel staff, wait staff, people on the street--than I did during an entire year in Kurobe, which just goes to prove that Kurobe sucks hairy monkey ba--I mean, Laos is a wonderful, wonderful place.
I'm already planning my next visit.
That will be all.
